Django

Django (4/5)

After hearing about the leaked title for Quentin Tarantino’s new film, Django Unchained, I decided to check out the originator of the film title, the original Django. Obviously Tarantino has been aching to make his version of a spaghetti western for quite some time. In fact, he has wanted to make a spaghetti western so badly that when it came time for him to make his WWII film, Inglorious Basterds, Tarantino made a spaghetti western on accident.

Django stands out as an early spaghetti western that helped establish the tone and themes of the genre. In fact the film became so popular that studios started slapping the name Django onto all of their westerns, which resulted in hundreds of unofficial sequels that really had nothing to do with the original Django. Franco Nero inhabits the iconic titular character who manages to match Clint Eastwood’s disquietingly monosyllabic man-with-no-name character. The plot borrows elements from A Fist Full of Dollars (which in turn borrowed elements for Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, which in turn borrowed elements from Dashiell Hammett’s novel, Red Harvest). I won’t hold the fact that Django is a twice told tale against it, since most of these films trade in homage and bricolage anyway and because director Sergio Corbucci brings an economic style that marks the film has wholly his own.

Early in the movie, the titular hero, Django, who appears to drag a coffin with him wherever he goes, saves a woman, Maria, from being flogged to death at the hands of an unruly mob. He brings her back with him to a nearby town that is nearly abandoned except, naturally, for a whorehouse, which happens to employ Maria. The residents of the town have been trapped between two warring factions, a rogue contingent of the Mexican army and a gang of Southern white supremacists. Django appears disinterested in these small town politics at first—a position reinforced by Nero’s minimalist performance—but we eventually come to understand that Django carries around more baggage than that old coffin.

As for what is inside the coffin, I won’t ruin the surprise, although the trope has been borrowed often, specifically in the space-western anime, Trigun, that you likely have a good guess already. I will say, however, that the item in question becomes an all purpose device, serving as means for Django to carve a way out of a corner he has trapped himself in and, later on, as a macguffin to drive the plot forward. Of the two gangs, the ex-Confederate, white supremacists are the most menacing. These men wear red, pointed hoods that are obviously reminiscent of the KKK and capture and release Mexican farmers so that they can shoot them down like pheasants. Naturally, they don’t take kindly to the Django’s Union uniform.

The film itself is decidedly low rent. We are told that the town Django stumbles into is deserted because of the warring gangs, but most audiences know that the town is deserted because extras cost money. Unlike some of Sergio Leone’s westerns, Django doesn’t transcend the genre (it’s less Raiders of the Lost Ark and more The Rocketeer). At times the commanding score by Luis Bacalov appears to be the only thing keeping the flimsy sets standing. And yet it’s impossible to hold all of the films B-movie trappings against it, and not only because the filmmakers do a tremendous job with so little. One of the joys of the spaghetti western is that the genre has been emptied out. All of the weight of American myth, the trappings of manifest destiny, the world wearied job of nation building, have been dropped in favor of the truly essential elements of the genre, and then the filmmakers proceeded to push these elements to the breaking point. Unlike John Wayne and John Ford who became responsible for galvanizing the country around symbols of America, Carbucci and Leone had no such responsibilities. They saw the western genre for what it was: a fiction. They have not lied to themselves that these stories are anything other than movies removed by centuries, an ocean, and a few tropes from their source material. Spaghetti westerns are less concerned with the American west than they are with American movies.

I suppose this is why spaghetti westerns have captured the imagination of contemporary filmmakers like Tarantino, Takeshi Miike, and Jee-Woon Kim. Spaghetti westerns are movies about movies, the sort of meta-narratives that appeal to film nerds who have consumed the entire repertoire of whole directors. It is also the reason why Django feels light footed, making its way from scene to scene without the burden of history. It is also why, as much as I love some of the work by Ford and Hawks, when it comes to stories about stoic men with a fast draw, I’ll take Leone, Carbucci, Eastwood, and Nero every time.

Oh, and the film has one hell of a theme song:

Local H - Local H's Awesome Mix Tape #1

Local H – Local H’s Awesome Mix Tape #1 (5/5)

The joys of the cover song are many. Live, cover songs can be a way to hear an old favorite with the sort of bursting energy that can only be witnessed in a tight, beer drenched space. On an album, however, it’s a little trickier. For an optimum cover, a musician needs to uncover something new and surprising in the original while maintaining whatever made that song great in the first place—a tricky proposition for any band. Local H is no stranger to covers. They have recorded several over the years that can be found on various singles and E.P.s. (My favorite is their cover of Guided by Voice’s “Smothered in Hugs.”) And yet even for a band well versed in turning in great covers—they managed to do a cover of Britney Spear’s “Toxic” without making it feel like a novelty track, after all—the prospect of an all covers E.P. can be worrisome. Local H’s last album, 12 Angry Months, was arguably their best (or, best since Pack Up the Cats, depending on how you crunch the numbers), so why would they potentially tarnish that triumph with what could potentially end up as Scott Lucas doing karaoke?

Fortunately Local H came up with a diverse range of songs to cover and a unique tact for engaging each one. From the Brooklyn indie darlings TV on the Radio to the eighties hardcore punk band Agent Orange to British tabloid star Pete Dougherty, the representative bands and musicians are an intriguing stew of rock and roll music from the past four decades. The ensemble cast of artists forces Lucas to vary his approach to each song. After all, it’s redundant to do a faster version of the original when the song’s already at breakneck speed. Perhaps the most surprisingly successful song on the album is TV on the Radio’s “Wolf Like Me,” a track that, in the vein of Blur’s “Song 2,” managed to be perfectly polished ball of energy. Lucas may not have been able to outrun the original’s pace, so he instead dragged it through the mud, scuffing up the song with a squealing intro and plenty of feedback. Lucas seems just as comfortable taking over vocal for Johnette Napolitano of the band Concrete Blondes for their 1990s hit “Joey” as he does for any male vocalists. Instead of coming across as self-conscious cross-dressing, the performance is absolutely sincere, suggesting that a great pop song transcends gender. The trickiest cover may have been a rendition of Pink Floyd’s “Time,” a great song that has been nearly destroyed by its ubiquitous presence on your uncle’s favorite classic rock radio station. Local H institute a scorch earth policy on the original, napalming its storied place within the rock and roll canon with a brutal series of guitar solos. In the end, Local H’s Awesome Mix Tape #1 serves as a reminder that Local H have turned in great music all these years because they know what great music sounds like.

Yuck - Yuck

Yuck – Yuck (4/5)

Take a look at that cover art. I mean, look at it. They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but sometimes it’s just so damn easy. After glancing at the cover art of Yuck’s eponymous debut, you immediately know that this group worships at the altar of J. Mascis and other 80s and 90s indie rock guitar gods. You probably already have a good idea of what this album sounds like, but I’ll risk redundancy by dropping a handful of words on a review.

In a long tradition of English musicians, stretching back at least as far as the Beatles and the Stones, the London, England based Yuck seem far more interested in what’s going on across the pond than in their own back yard. And I can’t blame them. We make some fine music in the States. But sometimes it takes a foreign ear to be able to locate the very essence of great American music and then to play it back to us. I know artsy Americans like to prove the superiority of their own taste by claiming artist X from Europe is so much better than artist Y from the U.S., but when a European band loves American music this much (and vice versa), I can’t help but feel like national borders are, at times, outdated.

Above I alluded to Yuck’s love for Dinosaur Jr., and while this might be the case, I wouldn’t limit their influences to any single band. Songs like “The Wall” and “Operation” have a beaten, gravel encrusted wall of guitar that certainly pay tribute to J Mascis’s wailing guitar, but you will find that much of the album leans heavily on lighter ballads. “Suicide Policeman,” for example, follows the lead of Yo La Tengo by incorporating horns and backing vocals that sound like they were rescued from a 70s AM radio rock ballad and housed in a much better song. The fact that Yuck are just as comfortable turning down the lights and plucking as few strings as much as they are setting their songs to full rock demonstrates how dynamic their music can be. To further prove this point, Yuck ends the album on “Rubber,” a chugging, Sonic Youth inspired epic that trades in hooks for texture.

Some might accuse Yuck of being two steps away from cover band territory, and, to be sure, certain songs wear their influences on their sleeves. But I think any charges of unoriginality are largely without merit. After all, the indie rock bands Yuck is clearly influenced by were a diverse bunch of musicians connected only by time and a shared love of the guitar. Yuck doesn’t so much echo these influences as they have internalized and recombined them. I must back track somewhat from my introduction. Despite the obvious similarities between Yuck’s cover art and some Dinosaur Jr.’s albums, the band easily transcends my lazy comparison. Yuck has produced an impressive debut that gives me faith that, like many of the bands they are influenced by, they will be putting out worthwhile music twenty years down the road.

Mogwai - Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will

Mogwai – Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will (4/5)

It seems as if ever since Mogwai released their second album there has been a coterie of fans demanding that the band remake their first album, Young Team. True, Young Team easily makes the running for one of the best album of the nineties, and it’s an undeniably strong first statement from a band. But as years have passed and Young Team has shrunk in the rearview mirror, it has become more difficult to understand those who seemingly want a Gus Van Sant style note for note remake of Mogwai’s debut. Hell, Young Team may be one of the best albums of the nineties, but the band’s catalogue has taken so many crooked back roads and ducked down so many foreboding alley ways that you would have a difficult time convincing me that Mogwai haven’t made a better album since 1997.

Instead of bowing to this small but vocal crowd of Young Team fanatics, Mogwai have instead chosen to produce a body of work that mimics evolution as it slithers, writhes and crawls from album to album. Mogwai may not have produced a radical shift in its sound over the years, but it has built albums that, even fifteen years into their career, still feel unique from one another. Mogwai’s newest, Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will, is no exception. But don’t let the typically glib title fool you. Instead of a metal thrash party, like Mr. Beast, Mogwai have turned in an album that plays with layers of texture. Album opener, “White Noise,” starts off small with ambient conversation and glittering guitar notes, but over the course of its five minutes it continues to pile on more and more sound until the entire enterprise threatens to fall under its own weight. Likewise, “Rano Pano” surrounds itself in a wall of fuzz that’s near impenetrable, even if the searing melody tries damn hard to break it down. Even some of the more driving songs are glazed in a blizzard of noise. “Mexican Grand Prix” sounds like the organic heart of krautrock’s metal body. It also marks the first time we’ve heard vocals on a Mogwai album since Mr. Beast, even if their encased in a Vocoder.

I’ve always thought that those clamoring for Young Team Pt. 2 are the same listeners who are more interested in the “next big thing” than they are in watching a band develop. They’re the same people who don’t realize that the greatest bands are much bigger than one album. That’s too bad because if they had been paying attention over the years then they would have noticed that even Mogwai’s ten or fifteen minute songs seem insignificant when compared to the big picture: seven sprawling albums cut across decades with not a single dud in sight.

Best Coast - Crazy for You

Best Coast – Crazy for You (3.5/5)

Rock music has always been dominated by men. From Buddy Holly’s pining for Peggy Sue to the libidinal poses of Jim Morrison, most rock and roll songs have been told from the perspective of those with a Y chromosome. In fact, the masculine point of view has been so ingrained in rock and roll that when a woman wants into the tree house she has to prove that, like the rest of the guys, she can take just as many drugs and partake in just as much indiscriminant sex. Janis Joplin, Grace Slick, and Joan Jett, to name a few, became rock and roll icons by asserting that whatever guys could do, they could do better. The approach of what’s-good-for-the-goose-is-even-better-for-the-gander has had its benefits, allowing women to break from roles traditionally created for them, but just as often it can serve to reinforce the whore/Madonna dichotomy that stretches back to long before Chuck Berry fashioned the first rock and roll song.

With this, incomplete, history of women in rock music I’ve come to Best Coast’s debut album, Crazy for You, with some trepidation. Lead singer Bethany Cosentino has a penchant for writing songs about lounging and longing that stand in stark contrast to the pioneers of women in rock. Instead of making lyrics like “Take another little piece of my heart” sound like a challenge, Cosentino sings as if she spent the entire album holding onto her paramour’s pants legs as he strolled out the door. On the opener, “Boyfriend,” she sings, “I hope that he’s at home / Waiting by his phone”; later, on “Goodbye,” she croons “Every time you leave this house / Everything falls apart”; and, finally, on “Bratty B,” she pleads “Pick up the phone / I wanna talk about how / I miss you so much.” It’s not that there aren’t plenty of examples of guys pining over girls in songs, but has there ever been an album with this much self-destructive longing? Cosentino has avoided the whore and Madonna stereotypes only to fall firmly into the just as damaging archetype of the crazy girlfriend.

The songs themselves are reasonably catchy throwbacks to early rock and 60s girl groups. Like most musicians who trade in retro styles, Best Coast play up the difference between the pristine Leave it to Beaver image of the past the internet ravaged present. For her part, Cosentino presents herself as stewing in a cloud of marijuana and codependence. Likewise, much like some of those early pop songs, here the sentiments are as simple as the rhymes. It would be tempting, then, to read Best Coast’s mix of longing and dependence as a critique of those classic songs, revealing to the reader the kind of damage that music inflicted on the image of women. The only problem with this take on Best Coast is that it’s a complete misreading of some of the best girl group songs. When Dionne Warwick sings “Walk on by” to her ex, she’s asserting the fact that pain is temporary just as much as she concedes that she has spilled more than a few tears since he has left. Cosentino concedes much more than she asserts, and I suppose your enjoyment of Crazy for You depends on how much time you’ve spent sitting by the phone waiting for the girl in Biology class to ring you up.

Exit Through the Gift Shop

Exit Through the Gift Shop (5/5)

Exit Through the Gift Shop opens with a montage of street artists putting their work on display in a number of precarious locations—along the sides of skyscrapers, across street signs, and over ads for beauty products. Where the artwork is located, whether elevated to improbable heights or splayed across feckless city ads, becomes just as integral to the overall effect of the art as what is pasted or spraypainted by the artists themselves. In other words, street art might be the first time in the visual art world where the canvass is just as important as what is displayed on it. It’s a suitable beginning to a film that asks us to question what we see in art and in what ways our reactions to artwork are bound up in how it is presented to us.

Exit Through the Gift Shop centers on Thierry Guetta, a French ex-pat living in Los Angeles, and how he descends into the shadowy world of street artists. Ever since Thierry had received his first camcorder he found himself self-documenting all aspects of his life. We learn that most of Thierry’s early documenting efforts were mostly of the mundane moments of everyday life, and it wasn’t until he made a trip back home to France where he encountered his street artist cousin, Invader, that his videolog started to shape itself into some sort of purpose. After watching his cousin work, Thierry becomes intrigued by the underground art movement that seems to be hiding in plain site on city signs and skyscrapers. He begins documenting and obsessively following any and all street and graffiti artists he can find, collecting them like baseball cards (or, Pokemon cards for the kids out there). He even manages to strike up a friendship with America’s most ubiquitous street artist, Shepard Fairey, who is mostly famous for his Andre the Giant and They Live mash up, “Obey,” as well as his inescapable red and blue Obama profile.

In order to find acceptance among the usually reticent group of underground artists, Thierry claims that he is making a documentary. This sets up a symbiotic relationship between Thierry and the artists he shadows: he needs a subject for his camera and, because of the short lifespan of their artwork, they need documentation. This leads Thierry to eventually meet the most elusive street artist, Britain’s Banksy. Like most of the street artists featured in the film, Banksy’s work is of a distinctly political bent, and perhaps the most memorable moment of the film occurs when Banksy brings an inflatable simulacrum of a Guantanamo prisoner to Disney World. The presence of a chained and hooded American prisoner in the midst of the most meticulously controlled place on earth naturally erupts into chaos.

Eventually Banksy encourages Thierry to start making his own artwork, perhaps merely as a means to get rid of him and his pesky camera. Convinced that art is nothing more than a form of brainwashing, Thierry dubs himself Mr. Brainwash. After briefly trying his hand at pasting a signature icon around L.A., Mr. Brainwash quickly decides that what he really needs is a gala exhibition. After recruiting an army of starving artists, Thierry refits an abandoned office building into his own personal art gallery and through the magic of delegation constructs a surprising number of exhibits in a matter of weeks. And yet despite his relative lack of experience in the art world and his dubious artistic achievements, Mr. Brainwash’s show becomes a massive success. Lines for his show wrap around the block, and his artwork sells for thousands of dollars each. All of this and no one at the exhibit is quite capable or articulating why Mr. Brainwash is the genius they seem to think he is.

The central question of the Gift Shop is, how do we value art? For much of the film this question is on the level of expression. What does it mean for Banksy to place an image of human depravity, a Guantanamo inmate, in the middle of a make believe world tailor made to help its guests forget about the troubles of the outside? But by the end of the film that question of value becomes monetary. We see Thierry walking through his gallery naming a price for his artwork almost at random. The value of art shifts from a question of interpretation to a question of monetary worth.

It’s this shift in how art is valued that has some people claiming that the film illustrates why artistic value is meaningless. I disagree with this supposed message of the film. Clearly from the reactions to Thierry’s work by Banksy and Fairey, we are not supposed to take his artistic merit seriously. In fact, most of Thierry’s work looks like bargain bin Andy Warhol. However, Thierry vaults over his lack of talent by bolstering his project with copious amounts of hype. Those who visit his gallery are not questioning the artwork itself, but rather its potential cultural and monetary capital. Exit Through the Gift Shop wants us to ignore the way that celebrity buyers and art investors have obscured our view of art, and instead asks us to view, intently, what is right in front of our eyes.

Interpol - Interpol

Interpol – Interpol (2.5/5)

Bands use the self-titled album as a means of telling their fans that they’re going back to basics, that this album will rediscover what made the band great in the first place. That’s almost assuredly what Interpol wished to communicate by releasing a self-titled album after their critically derided Our Love to Admire. Unfortunately, despite whatever good intentions, Interpol’s latest fails to live up to the promise of their first two moody and exhilarating albums.

Interpol starts off promising with “Success,” a song built almost entirely upon their muscular rhythm section. However, by the second song, “Memory Serves,” many of the album’s reoccurring weaknesses quickly become apparent. Like much of the album, “Memory Serves,” relies too heavily on a feeble and repetitive chorus that lead singer, Paul Banks, strains to sell like he’s some sort of low level stock broker. Lyrically the album trades in the sort of over worn love loss that mistakes clichés for directness. In “Summer Well” Banks pleads, “I miss you babe / I want you back,” and as a listener I can only think to myself, “Who cares?” Interpol have never been known for their lyrical prowess, but on their first two albums you could count on them to use obtuse abstraction now and again to set the mood.

That’s not to say that Interpol doesn’t have its good moments. The orchestration on “Always Malaise” and the piano on “Try it On” point to a fuller sound that still might reinvigorate the band. Unfortunately, even the interesting sonic tricks on Interpol are buried under thick production that flattens any dynamics in their sound. These aren’t songs, they’re mosquitoes frozen in amber. The front cover of Interpol shows the band’s name in a state of deconstruction. Well, judging from their past few albums, the band should spend some more time figuring out how to tear their sound apart rather than putting it back together.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (4/5)

As the aggregation of six films, the first part of the final Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (whew), carries with it weighty expectations. With each installment the stakes have been raised to the point where the final film will have awfully high hurdles to clear. Besides, after making one’s way through what’s likely around fifteen hours of film already, you’re likely going to want a massive payoff. In the case of HP 7.5, it may be too early to decide whether the concluding movie delivers on the ever growing anticipation for the final conflict between good and evil, but I can confidently state that the film ingeniously ups the ante not by making Potter and his gang face off against even more powerful magicians, but by making our heroes grapple with their own interior fears, jealousies and existential nightmares.

Just as the final film in the series has been cleaved in two, we might look at HP 7.5 as a film divided. The first half takes the form of an espionage thriller, pitting Voldermort against the Order of the Phoenix. Realizing that Harry might be the only person capable of defeating Voldemort, the Order of the Phoenix creates several Harry decoys in hopes of redirecting any assassination attempts away from the real Harry. Their ruse is almost immediately discovered when several Death Eaters intercept the faux-Harries (and the real one) in mid-air, leading to an impressive chase scene across the London skyline and English countryside. This action sequence is perhaps only bested by Harry, Ron and Hermione’s infiltration of the Ministry of Magic, which has been recently co-opted by the Death Eaters, to retrieve a magic locket. These set pieces give the audience exactly what they want from their blockbusters: big adventure and even bigger special effects. Unlike the average blockbuster, which usually globs a bunch of CGI on the screen like a two year old with finger paints, HP 7.5’s action is carefully crafted mixture of excruciating suspense and daring deeds.

About halfway through the film, however, HP 7.5 makes a strange turn into what seems like a different film. After recovering the magic locket from the Ministry of Magic, Harry and company flee to the English countryside in order to decide how to dispose of this mystical object. The locket, we learned from the last installment, is a horcrux, or an object that houses part of Voldemort’s soul and grants him eternal life, until they’re all destroyed, that is. The horcrux locket shares many of the same qualities as the ring in Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings saga. It cannot be destroyed by except under special circumstances and brings out the worst in whoever happens to bear the locket at any given time. Naturally, the three take turns with the evil artifact, but this precaution still does not prevent the inanimate agitator from wreaking havoc on their interpersonal relationships. Ron is the first affected by the heavy burden of the locket, accusing Harry and Hermione of carrying on an illicit affair and eventually abandoning their expedition.

Of course, Ron isn’t entirely wrong in his accusations. It is difficult not to notice a simmering mutual attraction between Harry and Hermione. After Ron leaves, the two of them share a dance to a Nick Cave song (a lesser director would have brought in the overused “Hallelujah,” and still an even lesser director would have used the Rufus Wainright cover), a surprisingly tender moment that is at first difficult to read. By establishing that Ron’s insecurities are more than just paranoia, the film utilizes the locket’s magic to uncover real depth to its characters. The majority of the second half follows the characters as they attempt to discover how to destroy the horcrux, all the while moving from one gorgeous British landscape to the next. This extended camping trip seems somewhat lugubrious compared to the tightly constructed first half, and, as they stumble from one clue to the next Harry and Hermione seem at a loss as to what direction to take and where to go. This is their “Jesus in the Wilderness” moment where the characters begin to question the efficacy of what they are doing. We might also situate this stretch of the film within the innocence to experience themes that Rowlings has been working with since the first book.

If we view the Harry Potter saga as a story about a boy growing up and learning more about himself and the world as he progresses through an educational system, then, like anyone who has graduated from high school or college, we must contend with the question of what this individual will do once he is freed from the helpful constraints of schooling, where the next step forward is always placed right in front of you. Every schoolchild dreams of the freedom of adulthood, but few actually know what to do with themselves immediately after escaping the bonds of education (tellingly, Hogwarts is absent this time around). Everyone has his or her moment in the wilderness. This reading of HP 7.5 is bolstered by the strange, esoteric logic of the quest. The way that Harry and Hermione stumble from one clue to the next signifies the sometimes directionless nature of adulthood.

What’s particularly ingenious about HP 7.5 is that it overlays adult existentialist questions over what is ostensibly a “children’s film.” It is not, however, the first kid’s film of 2010 to do this. Toy Story 3 similarly grappled with questions of life’s purpose and death’s eventuality. What makes these films “dark” has nothing to do with violence or obscenities (although the trash dump in Toy Story 3 was rather frightening), but rather with their ability to imbue films made for a broad audience with themes that most of us would rather not think about on our day out with the relatives. There are other family films that are more violent and contain more sexual innuendoes, but these elements just as often make the films more juvenile as they make them more adult (filmmakers and fanboys take note). HP 7.5 and TS 3 show us that big movies are capable of tackling big questions.

HP 7.5 strides into theaters with the confidence only millions of ready made fans can muster. It decides, with great effect, to slow the plot down just when most films would be hustling to throw everything they have at the audience. It also includes a gorgeous animated sequence that incorporates fairy tales into the repertoire of Rowling’s collage of influences. If there is one thing that holds the film back, it is its role as prelude to the big finale. It is difficult for a film without an ending to fully satisfy, especially when we know that part two is just a few months away. Of course, when the credits roll on the final Harry Potter film, I reserve the right to adjust my score accordingly.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (5/5)

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince opens with several Death Eaters, flying through the air while enveloped in plumes of dark mist (like the children of Lost’s smoke monster), wreaking havoc in the world of muggles. Not only do they bust up a magic shop, but they also down a bridge in London, killing untold numbers of pedestrians. If you had any doubts that The Half Blood Prince would continue the sinister atmosphere of the previous installments, then the first few moments of the film should put those doubts to rest with a swift knock to the head. This time out Voldemort is at full power and his minions have free reign over their world and ours.

Each Harry Potter film contributes one piece to the overall puzzle regarding Voldemort’s past and Harry’s role as his Achilles heel (or would he be the arrow that can pierce the Achilles heel). In The Half Blood Prince the new Potions professor, Horace Slughorn, holds that next piece. Dumbledore recruits Slughorn for the upcoming school year in hopes that he will divulge a conversation he once had with Voldemort, known at the time as Tom Riddle, before his transformation into pure evil. Slughorn views his job as more than just a teacher in a classroom. He also establishes a coterie of young wizards and wishes who he believes it is his duty to fashion into adults. Harkening back to an earlier time, Slughron is the type of professor who would call the special something he recognizes in these students as “character.” In a bit of espionage, Harry must creep his way underneath Slughorn’s wing in hopes to uncover the secret conversation.

This time around, the melodrama of high school dating is pushed to the forefront, but unlike in previous films these aren’t moments the viewer must endure to get to the world of magic but rather enjoyable in their own right. The appeal of the Harry Potter series has always been its marriage of fantastical adventure with the everyday drama of grade school. But until The Half Blood Prince the quotidian half of that equation has always paled in comparison to the otherworldly. One of the joys of this lengthy series of films has been the evolution of the three main actors from passable children stars to the ideal embodiment of their characters. The Half Blood Prince also provides all three actors some great ensemble and individual moments to work with. Much of the high school plotline stems from a love triangle between Hermione, Ron and Ron’s new squeeze Lavender. Just as Hermione has come to realize her feelings for Ron, he has found someone new. (Although, I just can’t picture those two getting old together. I imagine Ron wearing a wife beater in front of the television while Hermione fetches him another Natty Light from the fridge). Harry, likewise, reaches the age where he’s ready to start dating, but has yet to recognize Ginny Weasley’s longtime crush on him.

Perhaps the most ingenious aspect of The Half Blood Prince is how the minutia of high school life becomes a major plot point. We all remember the used textbooks that were seemingly passed down from time immemorial and filled with scribbling, often obscene, of different penmanship. Well, Harry discovers one such used textbook for his Potions class that contains perfections on even the textbook’s recipes as well as some other magical tips. As a reader, I absolutely love the central place books take in the world of Harry Potter, from Tom Riddle’s diary to the importance of the library (Hogwarts just wouldn’t be Hogwarts if they had the internet). As a blockbuster children’s author, J.K. Rowlings appears to be establishing physical books as objects of value that are just as magical as any spell or potion.

The Half Blood Prince is the film where all of the elements of a Harry Potter film—the ingenious magic spells, the battle between forces of good and evil, the childhood romance—all finally come together, like a supernatural potion, into a perfect brew. The genius of J.K. Rowling is that, instead of writing sequels for a new wave of eight year olds every other year, she let her books mature with her audience, allowing her characters, plot and prose all grow along with the children who may have read the first book when they were even younger than Harry in his first adventure. In The Half Blood Prince, for example, the character of Draco Malfoy, who had always been a nasty little pipsqueak, must decide whether he is more loyal to Hogwarts or to the Death Eaters. In earlier installments it was always clear that Draco served as one of the villains, but as the stakes have risen, even the more wicked characters have trouble contending with the consequences or their actions.

Likewise, with each installment the films have displayed stunning visual complexity to match the emotional density. And the visuals for The Half Blood Prince are perhaps some of the best of the series. The director, David Yates, utilizes the byzantine angles of Hogwarts castle to cut and dissect the space between multiple characters, illustrating the levels of intrigue that are simultaneously occurring at the expansive Hogwarts compound. The framing owes much to Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth, another film that takes place within the cold confines of a castle. The color palate of the film mimics a daguerreotype tan, giving the movie an atemoporal timelessness. The world of Hogwarts has always been a bricolage of differing time periods, combining medieval signifiers, like wizards and castles, with memorabilia from the 1940s. To move from the world of the muggles to the world of magic is as much a movement in time as it is a movement in space.

It is often cited as a critical truism that The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best of the series (although, this is not necessarily the case for fans of the book). I can understand why so many critics make this assertion, and The Prisoner of Azkaban is indeed one of the top films of the series, but I truly believe that The Half Blood Prince takes the prize for the best film in the franchise. Azkaban is a success for two reasons: 1) it was the first instance of a textual and emotional maturation of the series and 2) the film stripped away much of the grade school drama that had gummed up the works in past installments, making the first Harry Potter film that felt like a large scale blockbuster, even if its running time was slightly shorter. The reason why The Half Blood Prince is an even better film than The Prisoner of Azkaban is because instead of hiding from some of the soap opera elements of past installments, the film chose to strengthen those aspects of the story, making the viewer just as concerned with who Harry might end up dating as they are with whether or not Harry and Dumbledore will find the correct enchanted object to stop Voldemort. With the sixth film in the series, director David Yates has finally positioned Harry Potter as a fantasy world of cinema to be considered alongside the likes of The Wizard of Oz, The Lord of the Rings, and The Princess Bride. You might disagree with whether or not these films deserve a place next to these esteemed films, but as the series draws to a close it is impossible to ignore their place within the genre of fantasy.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (4.5/5)

When last we left our hero, Harry Potter, he had just faced a newly repowered Voldemort 2.0. So it’s a puzzling turn of events when Harry returns to Hogwarts only to discover that he has been branded a liar and that Voldermort’s existence has been vehemently denied by the Ministry of Magic. Harry’s role as an inventor of canards has turned him into an outcast at Hogwarts where the other students look at him askance and openly doubt his story. But even as the Ministry denies the impeding threat, a secret organization called The Order of the Phoenix has set out to defend itself against Voldemort and the Death Eaters.

There are duel villains in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Not only must Harry worry about Voldermort from without, but he must also contend with the Ministry of Magic from within. As is often the case with a new Harry Potter film, there is also a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. This time the new professor, Delores Umbridge, has been generously provided by the Ministry, and she immediately sets changes in the curriculum and the school rules. The Ministry is fearful that Dumbledore is amassing an army of teenagers, so Umbridge does away with all experiential learning, prohibiting the students from using magic in class and relying on textbooks alone.

Delores Umbridge is the type of villain who appears tailor made to get under your skin. She wears bright pink outfits that seem to have been shipped from the early 1960s. She always doles out punishment with a healthy smile on her face. And, she covers the walls of her office with the kinds of collectible plates you can buy at 2am on the Home Shopping Network. Of course, each plate depicts a mewling kitten that actually mewls. As far as movie villains go, Umbridge is once removed from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nests’s Nurse Ratchett. Characters like these are so self-satisfied with their type of oppression, often branded with a smiley face, that the audience cannot help but anticipate their downfall.

In response to Umbridge’s restriction on using magic, the Hogwarts students set up their own secret club where Harry, who has the most experience in battle, teaches his peers how to attack with and defend against magic. After years of Harry being used as a game piece in a series of long cons, it’s refreshing to see him and his fellow students actively prepare themselves against Voldermort and his minions. Not only does this underground magic club help groom Harry into a leader, but it also heals rifts between Harry and his classmates who had come to doubt his warnings about Voldemort.

Harry’s preparation for the battles ahead does not stop with a secret student organization. Dumbledore tasks Professor Snape with preparing Harry against mental incursions by Voldemort. It is still unclear exactly what the connection between Harry and Voldermort is, but it results in a psychic connection between the two enemies that may be used as a weakness. Snape’s training takes on the form of torture, similar to those in the military who undergo different “enhanced interrogation” techniques in order to inoculate them when they are employed by the enemy.

Snape has always been one of my favorite professors at Hogwarts, and it’s not only because of Alan Rickman’s commanding vibrato. Even in the earlier installments, where the line between good and evil was much starker, Snape was a character who ultimately did the right thing despite whatever darkness lingered in him. Here we are given a reason for why Snape is always in such a foul mood. During one of their interrogation sessions, Harry turns his powers against Snape and discovers, hidden in his memories, that a much younger Snape used to be an object of teasing and torture for Harry’s father. Instead of demystifying the character, this bit of back story actually further connects him with Harry. We understand that the two have a shared past, which extends before Harry was even born, and we now know both characters have similar demons festering inside of them.

As Harry admits to his godfather, Sirius Black, he has an anger growing in him. Sirius explains to Harry that there is no such thing as pure good and pure evil, that both exist within us and we must sort them out ourselves. This is a particularly touching scene because not only does it showcase a family connection between Sirius and Harry, but it allows Sirius to explain that he comes from a family of purists who looked down on mudbloods, children who are gifted with magical abilities but one or more of their parents are not magical. Sirius’s speech to Harry can be viewed as defining the difference between the first two Harry Potter films and the subsequent, darker installments.

The tighter structure of The Order of the Phoenix allies it with The Prisoner of Azkaban, which had a similar blockbuster feel. At times, however, it becomes apparent that The Order of the Phoenix had to amputate parts of the book in order to fit the film within the relatively short (for a Harry Potter film, that is) running time. There are many characters who are introduced but never fully positioned within the world. Many of these characters are members of the Order of the Phoenix, and because they serve as Easter eggs for the true fan and to supply depth to the universe of Harry Potter, reminding us that much more is going on beyond the halls of Hogwarts, these characters add rather than subtract from the film. (Although, in one awkward exchange a Goth looking witch tells Mad Eye Moody, without explanation, not to call her Nymphona for reasons that surely can only be deciphered by J.K. Rowling acolytes). However, other characters who occupy more running time appear to be shoehorned into the proceedings. Luna Lovegood, a witch who is a bit touched in the head, serves as a mirror to Harry’s own troubled past, but she’s lumped conspicuously into the story seemingly without reason. Likewise, Helena Bonham Carter’s turn as Bellatrix Lestrange, the cousin of Sirius Black, is too small a part for such a well recognized actress. Both characters may be building towards something more important, but their inclusion here reminds the viewer that we are always receiving part of the story.

Despite the consistent quality of the Harry Potter films, they will always be, in part, companion pieces to the original books. The filmmakers are at once too deferential to the source material, afraid to discard with too much, and incapable of fully realizing the immensity of the books themselves. The Order of the Phoenix is as guilty of this as the other films, but ultimately it showcases one of the most propulsive plots in the series and ends with the most exciting climax yet. Perhaps it would be more than a tad greedy to ask for anything more.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (4/5)

Early on in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the fourth adventure for Harry and his friends, longtime fans of the series will notice a distinct absence. Unlike in the past three films, The Goblet of Fire begins with Harry waking from a bad dream at his friend Ron’s house, rather than at Uncle Vernon’s suburban home. Alas, I cannot say I miss Uncle Vernon’s plump visage. Not only was he a domineering philistine, but Vernon also seemed like a cartoonish throwback to the first two installments. After the darker shades of The Prisoner of Azkaban, it’s difficult to see where Vernon might fit within the increasingly doleful series.

In many ways The Goblet of Fire fulfills the promises made by The Prisoner of Azkaban. Knowing that multiple directors have taken the helm of this series, I at first expected a radical swing in tone and style with each changing of the guard. I’ve been surprised to find that, despite the darker atmosphere in Azkaban, the evolution of the series has been deftly executed, suggesting a large amount of foresight. I’m sure much of the credit must go to the books. It is my understanding that Rowling let each installment grow along with her young readers.

The Goblet of Fire not only treads in a tenebrous atmosphere and storytelling, but it also manages to expand the scope of Harry Potter’s world outside the bounds of Hogwarts. We find that Harry is spending the night at his friend Ron’s house so that he can go see the Quidditch World Cup with the Weasley family. Here we are given a glimpse of the multitudes of wizards from around the world, from neighboring Ireland to distant Bulgaria. Unfortunately, the festivities are cut short when a legion of Voldemort’s followers, called The Death Eaters, make like quidditch hooligans and bust up the joint.

Back at Hogwarts, the school is gearing up for the Triwizard Tournament, an event where students from different schools compete in three tests of mental and physical acumen. The champions are chosen at random by a magical goblet that is perpetually ablaze. Each student who wishes to compete must write his name on a piece of paper and place it in the fire. On the appropriate day, the goblet will spit out the names of the chosen students. This year, however, only students seventeen or older may compete in the tournament (presumably getting insurance for the younger wizards is somewhat of a pain). A spell is even placed on the goblet to prevent those under seventeen from placing their names in the flame. And yet, when the time comes to choose the contestants, Harry Potter’s name is shot out of the goblet despite the fact he both never entered his name and was incapable of doing so.

How and why Potter was entered into the competition serves as the central mystery of Goblet of Fire, but, as with the other installments, Harry must also figure out the vagaries of growing up. The friendship between Harry, Ron and Hermione is tested throughout. Ron becomes jealous of Harry when he is mysteriously entered into the Triwizard Tournament, and Hermione becomes miffed with Ron after he half-heartedly asks her out to the school dance. Not all of these conflicts are easily smoothed over, either. While Ron and Harry eventually come to an understanding, a similar truce is never made between Hermione and Ron. In fact Ron says a few things to Hermione that suggests he might be closet misogynist. Needless to say, strained friendships are a part of being a teenager. It’s to the film’s credit that the school dance is treated not so much as a rite of passage, but rather as the stiff and awkward social occasion that, for most, they are. Ron and Harry have difficulties finding partners for the dance, and when they do, it turns out the two boys are bad dates. Hermione attends the dance with Viktor Krum, one of the contestants in the Triwizard Tournament, but what could have been a resplendent evening turns ugly when Ron starts taunting her. Leave it to a Harry Potter film to avoid turning a middle school dance into an evening of magic.

Hogwarts once again hires a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Of all the rotating characters who have filled this position it is Goblet’s Alastar “Mad Eye” Moody who is perhaps my favorite. He gets his “Mad Eye” nickname from a false left eye that jets up and around, seemingly independent of its twin and capable of looking through the back of his skull (a useful skill for a teacher). Needless to say, he’s an eccentric character who shuffles about on a metal leg, tortures animals as a lesson for the class and brazenly takes swigs from his flask while in front of his students (my high school teachers at least hid their liquor in their morning cup of coffee). In other words, Moody seems like a fun guy to take on a night on the town.

Of course, the biggest surprise in the film is the final reveal of a fully recharged Voldermort. This time he’s not just some face on the back of someone’s head or a mystical projection. Without giving too much away, I will say that he is played with gusto by Ralph Fiennes. Interesting enough, one of the first things Voldemort does upon being released into the world is to go into a “what have you done for me lately” diatribe against his followers. When one of them protests that he helped Voldermort out of his exile, Voldermort sneers that this was done more out of fear than fidelity. I guess pure evil is codependence.

At the end of the film Hermione forlornly tells her friend, “Everything’s going to change now, isn’t it?” She might as well have been talking to the audience. As the films become increasingly bleak, it has become more difficult to tell where the story will take us. I for one, am curious to see where we shall end up.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (4.5/5)

Perhaps one of the most astonishing aspects of the Harry Potter series (other than the fact that they will make their way through all seven novels) is that, if the critics are to be trusted, the films have managed to maintain a certain level of quality even as several directors have passed the baton to the next man in line. If you think about other film series that made it out to seven entries or more, like Star Trek or Bond, then you’ll notice that they are marred by wild inconsistencies in quality. As the first film not directed by Chris Columbus, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban represented something of a test for the franchise. Despite his shortcomings as a director, Chris Columbus’s background in adventuresome family films at least presented him as an obvious choice as the director of the Harry Potter films. With The Prisoner of Azkaban there is a real question as to whether the franchise could continue with a new director at the helm.

And what a director! When Alfonso Cuaron, the first director to take over from Columbus, was tapped to make the next Harry Potter film he had just come off of his critically acclaimed Mexican film, Y Tu Mama Tambien, a story about teenage sexual exploration. I wonder how Harry Potter fans reacted to this news. My guess is that half of them thought Cuaron would make a film where Harry and Ron go on a road trip together only to discover sexual awakening while under the tutelage of an older witch. It turns out Cuaron did not implant an indie sensibility into the Potter franchise, but I am happy to say he did manage to inject new life into the series.

The Prisoner of Azkaban begins with Harry, once again, living with his aunt and uncle over the summer months. His Uncle Vernon has invited over his sister Marge for dinner while forcing Harry to play butler for the family. Marge is apparently not a fan of the Potters because not only does she insult Harry, but she also insults his mother and father. Ignoring the prohibition against using magic among the muggles, Harry lets his anger get the best of him and proceeds to inflate Marge like a large party balloon. He then quickly storms out of the Vernon household, suitcase in tow.

This opening scene is the first clue that the audience is in for some changes. The Prisoner of Azkaban is a darker film, both in its color palate and in its themes. After Marge is blown up into a balloon, we see her floating across the night sky like some low flying aircraft. Later we discover that she has been returned to her original state, but Cuaron momentarily allows audience to think she might live out the rest of her days bouncing from one skyline to another. The initial lingering question of Marge’s fate recalls other dark children’s films. In the original Willy Wonka, for example, the condition of each of the bad kids was left frighteningly ambiguous. This newfound darkness is reflected in the aesthetics of the film as well. Not only are there deeper shadows throughout the movie, but even Hogwarts’s uniforms are darker in shade.

This time around the villain is also suitably menacing. Each installment in the series has taken an opportunity to utilize some of Britain’s most prestigious actors, and The Prisoner of Azkaban is no exception. Not only do we get Emma Thompson as a teacher of divinations, Prof. Trelawney, but we also get Gary Oldman who plays Sirius Black, an escaped convict from the prison of Azkaban. (The name Sirius Black seems only one step removed from Oldman’s first major role as the punk legend Sid Vicious). Oldman has been fashioning his American accent for so long that I had actually forgotten that he was born a Brit. Black’s face is plastered on numerous wanted posters and newspaper pages. But because this is a realm of magic, Black’s image moves, like some sort of magical .gif, showing him screaming at his jailers (I like to think he’s saying “Eve-ry-one!”). In addition to an escaped convict, the Hogwarts gang must also worry about the likelihood of a roaming werewolf, making this the most Halloween themed Potter film yet.

While the film still stretches past the two-hour mark, The Prisoner of Azkaban feels much more streamlined than its predecessors. Strangely enough, it took an indie director to make the Potter films feel like a big budget action adventure. That’s not to say that the modest charms of Hogwarts and the camaraderie between the schoolchildren are missing. In one of the better scenes in the film we see Harry, Ron and other boys bond over magic candy that has the strange effect of causing one to growl like different kinds of animals. The scene barely lasts half a minute, but it is a wonderful reminder of what its like for boys to form friendships in their early teen years, attempting to impress and one up their mates. Alongside these smaller character moments (including Harry’s tutelage from a new Hogwart’s professor) Cuaron creates the longest and best executed action climax yet filmed for a Harry Potter movie. In the tradition of other great extended action sequences, like Return of the Jedi and The Seven Samurai, nearly the last hour of the film is a tense series of events that, while action packed, are also incredibly smart. I am loath to spoil the end of the film, but let me merely state that the climax of the film is as carefully constructed as the intricate gears of a pocket watch.

The previous Harry Potter films attempted to capture the wonder and magic of growing up and discovering what kind of world lies outside the bounds of your house, family and hometown. In this manner, the films are about more than just wizards and warriors. They also tried to capture the world through the eyes of a child. The Prisoner of Azkaban, however, is the first Harry Potter film that seems to be looking back at adolescence from the vantage point of adulthood. The darker tone of the film not only suggests the hard trials Harry must face as a wizard, but also the difficult times he must face as a teenager.

M

M (5/5)

My reviews of the Harry Potter films will continue next week, but for now I'm going to take a break by giving you some thoughts on the Fritz Lang masterpiece M, starring Peter Lorre.

With his bugging eyes, lingering baby fat and perfectly round head, Peter Lorre’s face has become something of an unexpected icon. Lorre’s visage is such a strange molding that it has even become enshrined in a number of cartoons: Warner Bros. used his impression in a classic Daffy Duck cartoon, the Genie in Disney’s Aladdin concocted a Peter Lorre impression and a worm featured in the stop-motion film Corpse Bride bore a striking resemblance to the classic actor. Most of these representations of Lorre played up the creepy nature of his image. It should surprise no one, then, that Lorre’s first role was as a pedophile and serial killer in the Fitz Lang directed M.

Many film critics credit Lorre’s character in M as the first serial killer in cinematic history, a dubious, if somehow unsurprising honor. The film itself is less interested in the motivations of the serial killer, although they are touched upon, than in how his reign affects the citizens of the unnamed German city. There is no single main character in the film, leading one to suspect that Lang was interested in the living, breathing life of the city itself rather than a single stalwart investigator. Just as the M is the first serial killer film, it is also likely one of the first police procedurals.

Lang beautifully illustrates how the threat of this serial killer has upended the lives of the citizens, police and criminals alike. In the first scene we hear a chorus of children singing a makeshift nursery rhyme about the killings (a technique that has been copied many times since, most famously in Nightmare on Elm Street). Even as one mother complains about the grisly song, another comments that when they can hear their children singing, at least they know they’re still alive. The police have been chasing after the killer for months, but, as the police chief explains to a politician over the phone, the murderer has left no clues and any tips have turned out to be worthless. These murders have even hurt the criminal element of the city. As the police have increased their efforts to find the killer, they have also increased pressure on criminal establishments. In order to rid themselves of the law, the gangs have decided that they must first get rid of this killer.

These stories are woven together through several strategically employed film techniques. When both the police and the gangs lay out their plan for capturing the murderer, Lang deftly cuts back and forth between them. It becomes a race between the law and the criminals to find the killer first. Cutting-edge camera work further helps draw a line between many different characters who have little in common beyond their fearful reaction to the killer. Lang’s camera deftly movies around buildings and through windows, connecting disparate city space. M becomes much more than a story about a serial killer, but rather becomes how fear breeds in an urban environment.

There are few modern corollaries to M. The closest example in film might be David Fincher’s Zodiac, another film about a serial killer that is more concerned with those trying to capture the criminal than the criminal himself. However, the movie’s diffuse focus, its cast of dozens and its curiosity about the detailed workings of a city is also reminiscent of many HBO television shows of the last decade or so, especially The Wire. It’s become something of a cliché to say “they don’t make them like they used to,” so instead I’ll merely suggest that they’re still trying to make them like they once did.